Write to return: The memoir of Hovhannes Cherishian and the restoration of the Armenian hearth. (October 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Lessersohn, Nora
• Other Names: Koureas Gabriel guest-editor.; Prosser Jay guest-editor.; Wilson Colette guest-editor.; Hakim-Dowek Leslie guest-editor.
• Is Part Of: Memory studies. Volume 12:Number 5(2019)
• Page Start: 565
• Page End: 575
• Publication Date: 2019-10
• Subjects: authorship -- diaspora -- genocide -- memory -- nostalgia; Memory -- Periodicals; Memory -- Periodicals; 153.1205
• DOI: 10.1177/1750698019870706
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1750-6980

Abstract

In this essay, I will analyze the memoir of Hovhannes Cherishian (1886–1967), an Ottoman Armenian shoemaker and genocide survivor from what is now southern Turkey, as an attempt to "restore the ruined ancestral [Armenian] hearth" and render "part of the lost legacy of [his] forebears" back unto "the possession of the Armenian community." By analyzing examples of transcultural memories from Cherishian's text, I will highlight the ways in which Cherishian uses his memoir to restore (and thus return to) a complex, multicultural, pre-genocide Ottoman Armenian existence. I will first locate Cherishian's memoir in nostalgia and memory studies as a way to draw out his role as an author. I will then explore aspects of Cherishian's text that reveal that which he lost to the genocide—and thus that which he restores through his memoir. In conclusion, I will discuss briefly the importance of memory sources for writing Ottoman and Armenian history.